Kukla's Korner Hockey

Entries with the tag: borje salming

When I go to my local NHL rink, I've become quite accustomed to seeing fans wear jerseys displaying the names of Swedes, Russians, Czechs and even Michiganders, but the NHL was once explicitly the realm of Canadians and only Canadians (as opposed to only in Don Cherry's head). As such, the Toronto Sun's Lance Hornby's marking the 40th anniversary of a true trailblazer's journey to the NHL:

Leafs scout Gerry McNamara was sent to Sweden during Christmas of ’72, ostensibly to bring back slick winger Hammarstrom from a tournament that included the great Barrie Flyers senior team. But he widened the scope when he saw [Borje] Salming trade jabs and hacks with the belligerent Flyers. The lanky defenceman showed off an effective checking game, blocked shots and covered so much ice on breakouts. Just as noteworthy to McNamara was Salming in the thick of the scrums.

“Yeah, things got a little rough that day,” Salming reminisced on the phone, grinding laughter into his distinctive nasal tone. “My brother Stig and I knew the way the Canadians played (both were in the national squad’s chippy ’72 exhibition against Team Canada) and we decided we’d stand up for ourselves. I don’t remember the Canadian guy’s name I got into it with, but Stig and I weren’t going to be the ‘Chicken Swedes’ everyone talked about.”

Salming wound up with a game misconduct (one report said he’d shoved the referee) and was taking his equipment off when McNamara suddenly appeared in the dressing room.

“I don’t know how he talked his way inside the door,” Salming said. “But he gave me his card and asked right away, ‘Do you want to play for the Toronto Maple Leafs?’ ”

Earlier this afternoon, some NHL 12 fans on the internet found a new Legends video, posted exclusively on the EB Games (now GameStop) webpage for NHL 12. However, the video was kind of “hidden”, thankfully over the time it took for me to write this update, there has been a new link to this new video released by EA Sports in an exclusive with GameStop’s official site, which makes it much easier to find, and is of much better quality that the original one that was found.

Read on, as I’ll provide a link to this new video ( UPDATE - Days later, I finally have the video included in this post ), which reveals several bits of juicy new info on the Legends, including what their team uniforms look like, some info about unlocking them, and best of all, what their overall ratings will be! Also included in this update is some additional news about the Jets’ new sweaters potentially not being in the game upon release, and some new quick-clips about HUT and the EASHL.

My apologies for not breaking this news the moment it dropped, as was the case yesterday. I happened to oversleep by a few hours this morning… anyway, here is the scoop. First, in a video released on EA’s Sports Swedish Facebook Page, further confirmed yesterday’s news about Yzerman, and then went on to reveal that Toronto Maple Leafs’ Swedish defenseman, Borje Salming, will also be one of the included Legends in NHL 12.